This is a part of the truth connected with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, which must always be associated with whatever else we learn of Him. We may think about His sympathy, His love, His humiliation, His sufferings, and His death, but we must always associate with it what is declared here. The mystery of godliness is, that " God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." The basis of all this is presented here.
It is this which stamps its value on the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus-on His blood. " He was in the beginning with God," though He hung upon the cross. Looking at His various offices we must still connect with them this great truth. As our Savior, our Intercessor, our High Priest, " He was in the beginning with God." HE WAS GOD: no less the Creator than the Redeemer, the ever-living God. In His coming again, too, He will be " God manifest in the flesh." While our hearts are often drawn to the truth of God's word, and to Him as God's center, let us remember that He has an existence now-we have to do with Christ now. He was down here in the world, manifest in the flesh; he is taken up into glory. He now exists in the presence of God. All that He ever was, all the glory in which He will appear, are centered in Him now.
We have to do with Him in all the power which was displayed when He said, " Let there be light, and there was light." One reason why Christians are so lacking in vital power is, that the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is so little the object of their intimacy. I am called to learn God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why should I be impoverished when I am told that the apostle was called to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ? Why should I lack when He is mine, and when all fullness is in Him? Do I scan this subject with an indolent mind? Do I say I have learned this? I can never understand God but by faith. The moment I reason I limit.
Look at the subject before us, the first verse; will reason help us there? Can I travel into that void of ages before ever the stars were created? Can my mind help me in thinking about Him who never had a beginning. The Scriptures begin to unfold by a description of the works of God; but here is One who was before all His works. God is before He acts. He formed all things by the word of His power. He created man able to contemplate His works, but He was before He began to create.
This is a subject beyond the reach of man. It is not a human apprehension of Christ that will save a man. But faith is simple. God gives the Spirit that we may understand the things of God.
Verse 2. Here I learn the history of Him who tabernacled with us. " He was in the beginning with God." Is it ordinary with our souls to think of God manifest in the flesh being engaged in creation? Are our souls habitually resting on this-He is almighty to save? All the manifestations of God have been through the Son. He is the " Wisdom" of Prov. 8; and I find here, that if His generation is to be declared it goes back into eternity. Creation is the work of Christ: may I not trust Him then? The soul needs to be established in this truth. He is the center of all God's actings. Faith never will have its true bearing unless seeing that Jesus hanging on the cross was truly God. (Col. 1:15-1915Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 18And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 19For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; (Colossians 1:15‑19).) When we read such statements as these where do they carry the soul? He who hung upon the cross fills all things-is the eternal God.
When the heaven and earth are no more His existence remains unchanged, He is the Alpha and the Omega. " I am He that was dead and am alive for evermore." But with whom am I associated when I receive Christ? I receive Him of whom it is said, " God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." In any intercourse with Jesus that is what He is. If I rest upon the blood of Him who is all this, in the accomplished work of Him who is all this, what can shake me? When heart and flesh fail, when all will be shaken, I may say-yes, but Christ never can be shaken. He not only creates all things but upholds all things by the word of His power. He was the full divine wisdom and divine power veiled in humanity, but never laying aside His Godhead. I can be satisfied with a very little knowledge of Christ when I have a thousand props to lean upon; but when everything fails then Jesus becomes the only and essential stay of the soul.
The apostle trusted in God that raiseth the dead, because he was always delivered to death for Jesus' sake; and it was his trust in God, I might say his companionship with God, which enabled him to say, " thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ." But, alas! how little is He known to us in all the depths of His love! What has God given us? the riches of the universe? He has given me Him who formed the universe, as well as the untraceable riches of Christ. What are men doing in rejecting Christ? How can they get on in the world without Christ?
Ver. 4, 5. The world as one common mass is darkness; light is that which belongs to God. There are only two things which God is-God is light and God is love. So Jesus here is light. But, then, mark His reception. What is the world's darkness? It did not receive Him, who was the light. Was Jesus known as God? Was there not always a conflict in men's minds about Him, when here in the world? Is it not so now? Don't talk about light; there is the light of science, the light of reason, the light of nature, and a thousand other kinds of light; but the life was the light of men. There is no understanding, no holiness, no likeness to God, but by the reception of Him who is the light. But then so received He is the life as well as the light. Connected with God's display of grace by Jesus Christ, He was the sacrifice for sin, to give efficacy to that grace. He was that, but man knew Him not.
Ver. 10, 11. We know the truth of this; but would any one imagine that men could be so bad, that when God came,-not by law, not as John the Baptist did, but in the full display of grace-that they would reject Him? In Himself He carried the secret of divine love. He came to accomplish redemption as well as to proclaim it. Beforehand we never could have judged so badly of men as that; but the death of Christ brings out the plain truth. If I have received Christ I have received Him plainly as the crucified One. For He is unfolded in all His character to us, though not to them. He was a living person in the midst of Israel, and so He was rejected, though come there; it was true, where any received Him, it was as what He was.
It is not enough for me to have Christ for my salvation, I want Him for my everyday necessities. If I am to be happy, if I am to enter into the joy which belongs to me, Christ in His glory must be the subject of my thoughts. We do not make a business of our religion. But is it an unhappy business to be always thinking about Christ, who laid aside all His riches to die for me? Who says, " all things are yours, for ye are Christ's?" But, "all men have not faith." One thing is needful. Men are not enough with Christ to tell of Christ. They do not come forth from their ivory palaces, their garments smelling of myrrh, aloes, and cassia. May the Lord stir up our hearts. We shall not be long here to study Christ or to witness for Him. We are passing on. It becomes us to remember that the time is short. We ought not to be satisfied with knowing Christ; we ought to serve Christ. But to serve Him we must know Him. " He came unto his own, and his own received him not." You would say it was a terrible thing to see a king coming to his dominions and his subjects all refusing him. It was this which led Christ to say, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" You say, no, Christ only once could have gathered; but you must not forget that Christ was acting before He appeared in the flesh. In Israel He was acting as much in reality before He came in the flesh as afterward. It was only their final crowning act of refusal when they rejected Him. God's counsels of mercy and man's evil run on in parallel lines.
Ver. 12. He was here, but was rejected. Who could have said, prior to the fact, that the few disciples who admitted His claims, were the only people whom God acknowledged? And yet it was so. When reason takes the lead it may often induce the heart to question-" is it possible that all men should be going the wrong way?" So reasons the natural mind. Can all be wrong, except the few who receive Christ? Let God settle that.
Beloved friends, remember Scripture speaks thus: " Many are called, but few are chosen." The majority are on the part of Satan in this dispensation. " Fear not, little flock," says Christ; because, compared with the mass, it is a little flock. How wonderful is the unfolding of this truth of " sons of God!" They became altered in their positive relationship to God. Do not let me think it a light thing to be a child of God. Who is it that talks thus" What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Who can compensate me if I give up the world for Christ? What, talk of giving up for Christ! The heart that knows Him never talks thus. There is something far beyond the world. We are called to inherit all things. The things of faith are the only realities. With Moses the future was pregnant with eternal riches.
" Sons of God"-what does this unfold to our heart? I have a Father above-my eternal hopes are in His hands-Jesus is the One with whom I am associated. Are our hearts resting on these things-associated with God as a father? "If children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." Christ is coming again. He came once to accomplish redemption-He will come again to gather in the fruits of redemption, " even to them that believe on his name." I may question whether I have received Christ, but it is those who have believed on His name that have received Him. If I know that Jesus is the Son of God-if I believe God's testimony about Him-that is receiving Christ. I do not speak of the assent of the judgment merely. " The whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick." When a person finds out that he is lost, then he inquires, " What must I do to be saved?" That which links any one to Christ is the reception of Him by faith. We know that He came to sinners. If I am looking at myself, it will blot my title. (ver. 13.) Redemption is by faith. But then he traces here what is accomplished when Christ is received. There is a hand behind that which is seen. It is God working with the Word, either by the preaching of the Word or the reception of it. " Born of God" is a vital thing. That which is born of a corrupt stock is corrupt-no good in it; but that which is born of God has what flesh could not impart, which blood could not communicate. It is a life which is associated with Him who is life. It is a real thing. I am created anew in Christ Jesus. (ver. 14.) If this is God's description of His own Son-this He who was engaged in redemption, who on the cross said, " it is finished "-is it not a sure resting place for the soul? All I have to do now is to glorify God in my body and in my spirit, which are His." Should it not be my study continually that I may know Him? Let me be found searching where my desires will never return barren. We stop short of delighting ourselves in the Lord. God is our joy. Should not the heart be resting continually on Him? There is a joy unspeakable and full of glory. How many of us know this?
In days of increasing gloom and perplexity, like the present, the soul of the saint is the more sent into its sure hiding-place or up to its Pisgah heights of hope and observation. It gets more accustomed to meditate on the strength of these foundations which God has put under our feet, the intimacy of that communion into which He has even now introduced our hearts, and the brightness of those prospects which He has set before our eyes. In connection with this last thing I would listen to the voices of the Spirit to the churches in Rev. 2, These words may be read with two intents; either to see what the moral standing of those churches was and then to get admonition for our souls, or to see what the promises of Christ to them were, that we get joy and consolation. It is only in this respect that I am now reading them, listening simply to those several promises which, the Lord makes to His faithful ones, and which will be found, I believe, to unfold before us in order the joys and glories which await the saints in coming days.
Ephesus.-" To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." This is the simplest form of promise. It tells the saint that his roots feed on the very kernels, or fat kidneys of eternal life, so to speak. Those outside shall have the leaves of this same tree for healing, (Rev. 22,) but the saints of the heavens shall have more. The very fruit of the tree itself, gathered, as it were, immediately from it, where it grows in the midst of God's garden-not the fruit brought to them, but gathered by their own hands off the very tree. Strong intimation of the freshness, the constant freshness, of that life that is theirs. The Lamb shall lead them to the fountains of living water-not to streams or channels, but to the spring-head of the river of life. (7) All this again telling the undiluted vigor of our life; as Jesus says, (and what can pass beyond such words,) "Because I live, ye shall live also." Here in this promise to Ephesus is the tree of life partaken of immediately by the heavenly saints. For this is their portion in life, to receive it from, and to nourish it at, the very fountains and roofs themselves.
Smyrna. -" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." This is something beyond what had been previously said to Ephesus. Here life is regarded rather as a thing gained than imparted. It was imparted in its richest form to Ephesus, but here we see it gained by Smyrna; for Smyrna wail sorely tried: some were cast into prison, and all of them were in tribulation. They were to suffer many things; but they are promised, on being faithful unto death, a crown of life, and life is thus spoken of as what they had earned or gained; as James in like manner speaks, " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them who endure trial:" and this is beautiful in its season. The Lord delights to own the faith of His saints, and if they have shown that they loved not their life in this world unto death, it shall be as though they had gained it in the world—to come. Life shall be as a crown to them there, as the glorious reward of not having cared for it here.
Pergamos.-" To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." We have another source of joy disclosed here. Life is possessed, and that abundantly and honorably, as we saw at Ephesus and Smyrna; but there is here the promise of another joy-the sense of the Lord's personal favor and affection-communion with Him of such kind as is known only by hearts closely knit together in those delights and remembrances with which a stranger could not intermeddle. This is here spoken of to the faithful remnant in Pergamos.
They had held His faith in the midst of difficulties, and clung to His name, and this should be rewarded with that which is ever most precious—-tokens of personal affection, waking the delighted sense and assurance of the heart of the Lord being knit to their heart. If the heart in this wilderness know its own bitterness, from the waters of Marah that flow here, there it shall know its own delights from the enjoyment and conscious smile of Jesus. He will kiss His saint 44 with the kisses of his mouth," he will retire as from the scene of the public glory to do this; or, in the midst of it all, give that pledge which shall speak it. It is the hidden manna which is here fed upon, and the stone here received has a name on it which none know but he who receives it. This, as another has said, all expresses this individual affection. It is not public joy, but delight in the conscious possession of the Lord's love. How blessed a character of joy in the coming day is this! Life possessed in abundance and in honor we have already seen, as at Ephesus and Smyrna; but here at Pergamos we advance to another possession, not glory in any form of it as yet, but the blessed certainty and consciousness of the Lord's personal affection.
Thyatira.-" He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of my Father: and I will give him the morning star." Now we read public scenes, scenes of power and glory. This is not merely life, though enjoyed never so blessedly; nor simple personal affection and individual joy therein, but here is something displayed in honor and strength abroad; here is power and glory in the first character in which the glories of the saints are destined hereafter to be unfolded,-that is, in their being the companions of the Lord in the day when He comes forth to make His enemies His footstool; or, according to the decree of the second Psalm, to break them with a rod of iron, to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. This will be His power just before He takes His kingdom. This will be His ridding out all that would have been inconsistent with the kingdom. This will be the girding of the sword on the thigh, like David, ere the throne be ascended, like Solomon, (Psa. 45,) it will be the rider's action ere the reign of the thousand years be begun. Rev. 19; 20. This is glory, this is manifested power; the first exercise of it in the hand of Christ, the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven; and in that act of power and display of glory the saints (as we are here instructed and promised) shall be with Him, they outliving, gloriously outliving, all that night of horrible storm and dread judicial darkness, as the star which " flames in the forehead of the morning sky," outlives the gloomiest night. This is blessed in its place, and here given to us in due season; for after the life and the personal hidden joy, the public glories thus begin to be ushered forth; for we shall find that this one, here spoken of to Thyatira, is but the first of a long and brilliant train of them.
Sardis.-" They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels." This is a stage onward in the scenes of the glory. The vengeance has been taken; the sword of him who sits on the white horse has done its righteous service, and the vessels of the potter have been broken, and the kingdom has come. Jesus here promises to His faithful ones, that He will confess them before His Father and His angels. This is not redeeming them from judgment, or saving their souls, (as we speak,) but owning them, publicly owning them, before the assembled dignities of the kingdom. For He promises them that they shall walk with Him in white, for they are worthy. This is not that they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That they have done, it is true, but that enables them to appear without reserve or blot before the throne; (7:9;)- but here it is not as before the throne, but as walking in white with Jesus in the kingdom. That hand, which now in grace washes their feet, will then take them into it, as it were, and own full companionship then in the realms of glory with Him. What a character of joy is this! To be publicly owned thus, as before (as we read to Pergamos) privately personally caressed. In how many ways does the Spirit of God here trace the coming joys of His saints! The life, the love, the glory, that are reserved for them The tree of life and its crown, too, the white stone, carrying to the deepest senses of the heart the pledge of love; and then companionship with the King of Glory in His walks through His bright and happy dominions. But even more than this the same Spirit has to tell.
2. They are used as the only adorning or clothing of the Lord's beautiful bride. (Rev. 19)
3. They are used by them also as following the rider on the white horse. This expresses their ability to join Christ in the exercise of judgment, so fully are they delivered from all judgment themselves. (Rev. 19)
4. They are used by them also as they walk with Christ in the kingdom. This expresses their worthiness to be companions of the king under the bright and peaceful shining, and along the paths of the glory. (Rev. 3)
5. Finally, they are used by them also as they sit on their own thrones. This expresses their priestly purity, combined with their royal dignity. (Rev. 4)
Thus, in each condition and action in which the glorified saints appear, they are seen as spotless ones, pure and unsullied, because of that righteousness in which, through grace, they stand. They appear before God-they judge the world-they walk in the dominions of the great King of glory, in immediate company with Himself-they sit on their own thrones, all in white, in owned and conscious righteousness. A white-robed people indeed; not a blot on them; but all consistent with the divine light around. And the whore, or apostate woman, has, in contradiction of this, her purple and scarlet. (Rev. 17:44And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: (Revelation 17:4).))
Philadelphia.-"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, that cometh out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name." We have just seen the heir of the kingdom as the companion of the Lord of the kingdom, abroad in the light of the glory, walking in white with Him, owned before the Father and the angels. Here the promise is, that the faithful one shall have his place in the system of the glory itself. That he shall be of that glorious order of kings and priests who shall then form the character of the scene. Each of, them being a pillar in the temple, and each enrolled as of the city. High and holy dignities! The saints integral parts of that glorious economy, as in the church on earth, they are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit, and grow together, all compacted, and fitly formed, like the members of the body, each being needed to the general completeness; so in the glory, shall each of the faithful ones to Jesus fill his place in the temple and city, a needed member of that royal priesthood then established in their holy government in the heavens, where the new Jerusalem dwells and shines. Whit honor is put on them here! Owned abroad, in his companionship with the Lord, walking, as hand in hand, through the rich and wide scene of glory, confessed before all; and also owned within, as bearing each in himself a part of the glory, every vessel needed to the full expression of the light of the new Jerusalem, and formed as a vital part of the fullness of Him who is to fill all in all, a king and a priest; each of them occupying his several rank and station in the temple and the city, the Salem of the true Melchizedec. What a place of dignity! Surely, love delights to show what it can do and will do for its object! O if we had but hearts to prize all these things, and to prize them ' because of their telling us of this love which has counseled these things for us! For what higher, happier thought can we have even of glory itself, than that it is the manner in which love lets us know what it will do for its elect one. Poor, poor heart that moves so little at these things, while the mind stirs the conceptions of them.
Laodicea.-" To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." Here the highest point of glory is reached. This is the bright and sunny elevation to which this passage, through the joys and honors of the kingdom and presence of Jesus, has conducted us. Here the faithful one enters into " the joy of his Lord"-sharing His throne. Not only owned by Him abroad, and established with Him within-walking in white with Him, or fixed as a needed and honored portion of the great system of royal priesthood; but with Him seated in the supreme place. What could be done more than is done? But from this elevation can our souls look back and trace the journey? or rather, while they do so, can they value what thus they gaze at, and long for a draft of these joys, and for a sight of these glories, as the hart pants after the water-brooks, and the watchman waits for the morning? This is what we want-a heart to prize our portion. The joys are rich, and the glories are bright, but the heart is feebly responsive.
Exceeding great and precious things surely have now passed before us. The tree and crown of life-the white stone -the morning star-the walk in white abroad through the paths of glory, and residence at home in the temple and city of glory-with a place on the throne itself-these are ours, as faithful to Jesus. Life enjoyed in abundance-and honor, friendship, and love, tasted in their deepest personal intimacies-and glory shared in all the displays of it, whether in the power of judgment on the enemy, or in all the honors and dignities of the kingdom. If Jesus Himself be prized, those things will be welcomed by us. If He Himself be loved, all this nearness to Him in life, affection, and glory, will be the heaven we desire. But is He our object? Do we make Jesus such? Can we send the message of the loving, longing soul after Him, and say," Tell him that I am sick of love." This is the point to start from, or rather this is the mind both to start and to travel with, and then all will be well, and all welcome, as we pass along through that scene of varied joy and glory which these chapters thus in due order so open and spread out before us. And these joys and glories tell us that we are Christ's object, for they surely can be the portion only of those whom He delights to honor and to bless.